charles spurgeon quotes

​“You will find all true theology summed up in these two short sentences: salvation is all of the grace of God; damnation is all of the will of man.” –1895, Sermon 2411

“Let me caution you against a very common expression. I hear converts continually told to give their hearts to Jesus. It is quite correct, and I hope they will do so. But your first concern must be not what you give to Jesus, but what Jesus gives to you! You must take Him from Himself as a gift to you—then will you truly give your heart to Him.”–1892, Sermon 2259

“The great destroyer of man is the will of man. I do not believe that man’s free will has ever saved a soul, but man’s free will has been the ruin of multitudes. ‘Ye would not’ is still the solemn accusation of Christ against guilty men (Mat 23:37; Luk 13:34). Did He not say at another time, ‘And ye will not come to me, that ye might have life’ (Joh 5:24)? The human will is desperately set against God and is the great devourer and destroyer of thousands of good intentions and emotions which never come to anything permanent because the will is acting in opposition to that which is right and true.”–1894, Sermon 2381

“The Egyptians have been counted the most degraded people of this world in their worship. They worshiped onions, until Juvenal says, ‘O blessed people, who grow their gods in their own gardens!’ But I do not think they were quite so degraded as the man that worships himself. If I could bring my soul to worship an onion, I could never degrade myself low enough to worship myself. A man who makes himself his own god is mad!”–1892, Sermon 2252

“God blessed William Huntington, the coal-heaver, to many souls, though he preached a very strong Calvinism; while at the same time, He was blessing some who preached a very weak Arminianism. But remember, God blesses neither the Calvinism nor the Arminianism—but the Christ that is in the sermon!”–1891, Sermon 2218

“I take leave to contradict those who say that salvation is an evolution! All that ever can be evolved out of the sinful heart of man is sin and nothing else! Salvation is the free gift of God by Jesus Christ, and the work of it is supernatural. It is done by the Lord Himself, and He has power to do it, however weak, no, however dead in sin the sinner may be!”– 1892, Sermon 2269

“We are sure that the Gospel we have preached is not after men because men do not take to it. It is opposed, even to this day. If anything is hated bitterly, it is the out-and-out Gospel of the grace of God, especially if that hateful word sovereignty is mentioned with it! Dare to say, ‘I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion’ (Rom 9:15), and furious critics will revile you without stint! The modern religionist not only hates the doctrine of Sovereign Grace, but he raves and rages at the mention of it! He would sooner hear you blaspheme than preach election by the Father, atonement by the Son, or regeneration by the Spirit! If you want to see a man worked up until the satanic is clearly uppermost, let some of the new divines hear you preach a free-grace sermon! A Gospel, which is after men, will be welcomed by men—but it needs a Divine operation upon the heart and mind to make a man willing to receive into his utmost soul this distasteful Gospel of the grace of God!”–1891, Sermon 2185

“I remember that within a week after I had found joy and peace in believing, I began to feel the uprisings of inbred sin and I cried out, ‘O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ I did not know that such a sigh and cry could never come out of an unbelieving heart—that there must be a new heart and a right spirit within the man to whom sin is a burden and who loathes it! I did not know that, then, and I wondered whether I could be a child of God at all!”–1893, Sermon 2296

“We long to see the people saved; but in order to that, they must be born again—and this we cannot ourselves accomplish. Change a stone into flesh? Try that at home with a piece of stone on your table before you attempt it with the hard hearts of men!”–1891, Sermon 2218

​“Blessed is that man who has done with chance, who never speaks of luck, but believes that from the least even to the greatest, all things are ordained of the Lord. We dare not leave out the least event! The creeping of an aphid upon a rosebud is as surely arranged by the decree of Providence as the march of a pestilence through a nation. Believe this, for if the least is omitted from the supreme government, so may the next be, and the next, until nothing is left in the Divine hands. There is no place for chance, since God fills all things.”–1891, Sermon 2205

“When one knows that his times are in God’s hands, he would not change places with a king! No, nor even with an angel!”–1891, Sermon 2205

“The prerogative to give life or to take it away must remain with the Most High. The wit and wisdom of man are altogether powerless to bestow life upon even the tiniest insect! We know of a surety, doctrinally, and we know it with equal certainty by experience that we can do nothing towards the quickening of men apart from the Spirit of God. If He does not come and give life, we may preach until we have not another breath left; but we shall not raise from the tomb of sin even the soul of a little child or bring a single sinner to the feet of Christ!”–1892, Sermon 2246

“There stands the text, and I believe that it is my Father’s wish that all men should ‘be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth’ (1Ti 2:4)…But I know, also, that He does not will it, so that He will not save any of them unless they believe in His dear Son, for He has told us over and over that He will not. He will not save any man unless he for- sakes his sins and turns to Him with full purpose of heart—that I also know. And I know, too, that He has a people whom He will save, whom by His eternal love He has chosen and whom by His eternal power He will deliver. I do not know how that squares with this—that is another of the things I do not know. If I go on telling you of all that I do not know and of all that I do know, I will guarantee you that the things that I do not know will be a hundred to one of the things that I do know!”–1880, Sermon 1516

“All things are ordained of God and are settled by Him, according to His wise and holy predestination. Whatever happens here happens not by chance, but according to the counsel of the Most High! The acts and deeds of men below, though left wholly to their own wills, are the counterpart of that which is written in the purpose of heaven.”–1891, Sermon 2205